I confess the difficulty was a new one to me. My experience in poultry had been limited. My knowledge of them was exclusively anatomical, obtained by frequent dissections with the carving-knife. On calling Dick, however, it appeared that he knew more about this trouble than the whole family together. When my wife described her condition to him, and how she had swarmed with the vermin, the fellow laughed outright, but said they wouldn’t hurt—he knew all about them, for he had been full of lice more than once! He said he expected this, as the fowls had been kept up too close: they would neither lay, thrive, nor keep clear of vermin, unless allowed to run about.
But he took the case in hand, clipped their wings, saturated their heads with lamp oil, provided abundance of ashes for them to roll in, and then turned them loose in the barnyard. He then obtained poles of sassafras wood for them to roost on, as he said the peculiar odor of that tree would drive the enemy away. I presume his prescriptions answered the purpose; at all events, we discovered no more hen-lice, because the whole family were careful never to touch a fowl again.
I think this little catastrophe took all the romance out of my wife touching chickens. I rarely heard her mention eggs afterwards, except when some of us were going to the store for other things, and she was careful never to purchase chickens with the feathers on. She never referred to the hundred and fifty she was to hatch out that season; nor have I ever heard her even mention horse-flesh as a sure thing for making hens lay all the year round. That winter Dick fattened and killed the whole lot. My wife did not seem to have much stomach for them when they came upon the table. I was not sorry for it, except that she had been disappointed. Her knowledge of keeping poultry had been purely theoretical, and her first disappointment had completely weaned her of her fondness for the art.
But this brief and unlucky experience of ours should by no means operate to discourage others. Money is undoubtedly made by skilful men at raising poultry. It cannot be a losing business, or so many thousand tons would not be annually produced. Volumes have been written on the subject, which all who contemplate embarking in the business may consult with profit. As an incident of farm life it will always be interesting, and with those who understand the art it ought to be profitable.
Foreigners must be more experienced in the business of raising poultry than Americans, judging by the vast quantities they annually produce for market. The quantity imported into England is so enormous, that it is impossible to determine its amount. Into only two of the principal London markets there is annually brought from France and Belgium, 75,000,000 eggs, 2,000,000 fowls, 400,000 pigeons, 200,000 geese and turkeys, and 300,000 ducks. In addition to these, the large amount sent to poulterers and private houses must be considered. The Brighton railroad alone carries yearly 2,600 tons of eggs which come from France and Belgium. Yet, with all these immense supplies, the London markets are frequently very meagrely supplied with butter and eggs. The trade is shown by these figures to be one of great national value. Americans have strangely neglected its cultivation with the method and precision of foreigners. We can raise food more cheaply than they, while none of them can boast of possessing our incomparable Indian corn.
There are several of my neighbors who are highly skilled in the art of raising poultry. One of them is quite a poultry-fancier, and, by keeping only choice breeds, he realizes fancy prices for them. Another confines his fowls in a plum-orchard, and thus secures an annual crop of plums without being stung by the curculio. In general, the female portion of the family attend to this branch of domestic business, and realize a snug sum from it annually. A brood of young chickens turned into a garden, the hen confined in her coop, will soon clear it of destructive insects.
CHAPTER XIII.
CITY AND COUNTRY LIFE CONTRASTED.
THE pensive reader must not take it for granted that in going into the country we escaped all the annoyances of domestic life peculiar to the city, or that we fell heir to no new ones, such as we had never before experienced. He must remember that this is a world of compensations, and that nowhere will he be likely to find either an unmixed good or an unmixed evil. Such was exactly our experience. But on summing up the two, the balance was decidedly in our favor. It is true that though the town close by us had well-paved streets, yet the walk of half a mile to reach them was a mere gravel path, which was sometimes muddy in summer, and sloppy with unshovelled snow in winter. But I walked over it almost daily to the post-office, not even imagining that it was worse than a city pavement. The tramp of the children to school was not longer than they had been used to, and my wife and daughters thought it no hardship to go shopping among the well-supplied stores quite as frequently as when living in the city. Indeed, I sometimes thought they went a little oftener. They were certainly as well posted up as to the new fashions as they had ever been, while the fresh country air, united with constant exercise, kept them in good appetite, even to the rounding of their cheeks, and the maintenance of a better color in them than ever.
As to society, they very soon made acquaintances quite as agreeable as could be desired. Visiting became a very frequent thing; and after a few months I let in a suspicion that the girls found twice as many beaux as in the city, though there the average number is always larger than in the country. On throwing out an insinuation of this kind to Kate, one summer evening, after a large party of young folks had concluded their visit, she made open confession that it was so, and volunteered her conviction that they were decidedly more agreeable. I admit this confession did not surprise me, as there was one young man among the party who had become especially attentive to Kate—bringing her the new magazines as soon as they were out, sundry books and pictorials, and always having a deal to say to her, with a singular genius for getting her away from the rest of the company, so that most of their mysterious small-talk could be heard by none but themselves. Another remark which I made to Kate on a subsequent occasion, touching this subject, covered her bright face with so many blushes that I ventured to mention the whole matter to my wife; but she made so light of the thing that I said no more at the time, thinking, perhaps, that the women were most likely the best judges in such cases. But I have since discovered that my prognostications were much more to be depended on than hers.
Then the walks for miles around us were excellent, and we all became great walkers, for walking we found to be good. Not merely stepping from shop to shop, or from neighbor to neighbor, but stretching away out into the country, to the freshest fields, the shadiest woods, the highest ridges, and the greenest lawns. We found that however sullen the imagination may have been among its griefs at home, here it cheered up and smiled. However listless the limbs may have been by steady toil, here they were braced up, and the lagging gait became buoyant again. However stubborn the memory may be in presenting that only which was agonizing, and insisting on that which cannot be retrieved, on walking among the glowing fields it ceases to regard the former, and forgets the latter. Indeed, we all came to esteem the mere breathing of the fresh wind upon the commonest highway to be rest and comfort, which must be felt to be believed.